Celebrating 10 Years of the Source Engine

It’s hard to believe that Valve’s Source engine is turning 10 years old this month. We still remember being amazed at the Half-Life 2 tech demo shown back in 2003 at E3 and how we marveled at the huge leap in graphics as the notorious G-man appeared looking extremely lifelike.

Could we see new Batman, Mirror's Edge, and Mass Effect games?

E3 2014 is nearly upon us and with the new consoles firmly into their sophomore year we’re expecting to see an even bigger explosion of games. While many studios only teased their games last year they may finally showcase actual gameplay at this year’s expo in Los Angeles. Maximum PC will be on the scene to catch all the new games and hardware, but we’re jumping the gun to lay out the 14 of the most anticipated PC games we’re hoping will be unveiled.

What are you looking forward to at E3 2014? Let us know in the comments!

Budget, baseline, and performance PC builds!

What time is it? It's time to Build a PC with our Blueprints! This month, we've built three rigs at three approximate price points: Budget, Baseline, and Performance. Budget gives you an economical workhorse, Baseline gets you a powerful system for gaming and content creation at 1080p, and Performance beefs everything up across the board.

Best AC router: everything you need to know about the 802.11ac standard

Even though you might just now be getting around to upgrading your home network to take advantage of the 802.11n spec, there’s a new standard on the horizon that promises even faster speeds. How fast? Well, if 802.11n is a pitcher’s fastball, the draft 802.11ac spec is a bullet fired from a gun, at least in theoretical terms.

Sweet and sour apples

Following our Microsoft and Google successes and failure stories, we’ve heard some of you clamoring for an Apple Successes and Failures list. Since it also happens to be Apple's big week for its WWDC event, we decided now would be a good time to oblige and reflect on Apple's history. Yes, we’re the biggest PC fanboys around, but we can’t deny that Apple has had some financially successful computing devices.

Join us as we look back at the storied history of multi-GPU cards

The Voodoo-line of graphics cards might be long gone, but their impact is still felt today. They ushered in a new era of consumer PCs with relatively powerful video cards that could power the ultra demanding games of yesteryear like Quake and Unreal. It all started with the 3Dfx Voodoo2 and has continued on with modern cards like the Titan Z and R9 295X2.

To all the Windows 8 haters out there, we feel your pain! The update might be too little, too late for some, but if you're ready to accept a Win 8.1 fate, our guide will get you started

Sometimes we wonder if Microsoft didn’t actually build a new OS so much as a Frankenstein that its customers could direct years of pent up anger, frustration, and fear onto. For example, just hint that Windows 8.0 ain’t that bad on the Internet, and some Windows users will react as if you keyed their mint ’64 Chevelle Malibu and kicked their dog with your steel-toed boot. To say you’ll get a beat down of YouTube-able proportions is an understatement of people’s rage at Windows 8.0 today.

Note: This article originally appeared in the January 2014 issue of the magazine.